Me to Chloe (7) and Matty (10) upon returning home this morning with a Band-aid on my left arm: "I just got my T.B. test."
Matty: "Was it a plasma screen?"
Me: "Wha--?"
Matty: "...A plasma screen TV?"
Me: "Oh! Noooo! A 'T.B.' Test. It's for a disease that can lead to heavy fluid in your lungs. I needed to do it so I could volunteer in the garden at your elementary school."
Chloe: "Remember that time I got a caesar?"
Me: "You mean, a seizure."
Chloe: "It was a little caesar."
Matty: "Did they hand out pizzas in the emergency room?"
(You can't script this.)
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
REQUIEM FOR A DIRECT MAIL GURU
REQUIEM FOR A DIRECT MAIL GURU
by Edward It on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 7:36am
You've no doubt heard by now that the unequivocal 'King of Infomercials,' Don Lapre, took his own life in a
Federal prison over the weekend. In the late 80s, early 90s, I used to entertain people with my impression
of the baby-faced Lapre hawking the idea that anyone could make millions selling products (basically
repurposing printed collateral) through classified ads. His pitch: "Why would anyone -- I mean ANYONE --
ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?"
Lapre's infomercials were frequently populated with images of luxury cars, exotic islands, sprawling
mansions with designer kitchens, yachts, and other trappings of wealth luring in unsuspecting viewers -- many of whom were probably camped out on their collective couches at 3 in the afternoon wondering where their lives were going (I was working from home, so thanks for leaving me off that list!).
Curiously, those same images continue to cover three-quarters of Lapre's web site (donlapre.com)
only now, the last quarter contains snapshots of Lapre with, I'm guessing, his teen daughter and
some younger child, a boy, who may or may not be a son, though possibly the offspring of a close
friend or even Lapre's nephew. Near the bottom of the page, there appears a photograph of a letter his daughter wrote him while Lapre was alive. It suggests another side of Lapre, a caring father, as seen through the eyes
of a girl who didn't care about get rich quick schemes, and the 'Step 1, 2, 3' methods to ensure their success.
The entire one-page site is fronted by what sounds like an apology or maybe an excuse or validation.
There's an over-obvious moral to this story, something that transcends the caveat, "You can't take it with you." That almost seems blunt by comparison to the personal pain this man must have been feeling, I suspect, well before the 46 count indictment and accusations of defrauding more than 200,000 people were handed down, after he amassed an estimated $52 million fortune.
Who will inherit all the trappings of success Lapre built on not so much a Webster's dictionary's worth of classifieds, but the recipes for how to use them to make millions is yet to be seen. I'm sure he had an insurance policy in place for his daughter and maybe even that little boy he referred to on his site as "My best buddy." The Hollywood movie is just around the corner. It will be interesting to see if that other institution that puts wealth (and with it power) on an idolic pedestal will do justice to his story. Or to the people he defrauded. Whatever the outcome and anticipated artistic reinterpretations, it strikes me odd that, in the end, Lapre, so to speak, lived out his point:
Why WOULD anybody ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?
(c) 2011 CREDIT THE EDIT, LLC http://www.credittheedit.com/
by Edward It on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 7:36am
You've no doubt heard by now that the unequivocal 'King of Infomercials,' Don Lapre, took his own life in a
Federal prison over the weekend. In the late 80s, early 90s, I used to entertain people with my impression
of the baby-faced Lapre hawking the idea that anyone could make millions selling products (basically
repurposing printed collateral) through classified ads. His pitch: "Why would anyone -- I mean ANYONE --
ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?"
Lapre's infomercials were frequently populated with images of luxury cars, exotic islands, sprawling
mansions with designer kitchens, yachts, and other trappings of wealth luring in unsuspecting viewers -- many of whom were probably camped out on their collective couches at 3 in the afternoon wondering where their lives were going (I was working from home, so thanks for leaving me off that list!).
Curiously, those same images continue to cover three-quarters of Lapre's web site (donlapre.com)
only now, the last quarter contains snapshots of Lapre with, I'm guessing, his teen daughter and
some younger child, a boy, who may or may not be a son, though possibly the offspring of a close
friend or even Lapre's nephew. Near the bottom of the page, there appears a photograph of a letter his daughter wrote him while Lapre was alive. It suggests another side of Lapre, a caring father, as seen through the eyes
of a girl who didn't care about get rich quick schemes, and the 'Step 1, 2, 3' methods to ensure their success.
The entire one-page site is fronted by what sounds like an apology or maybe an excuse or validation.
There's an over-obvious moral to this story, something that transcends the caveat, "You can't take it with you." That almost seems blunt by comparison to the personal pain this man must have been feeling, I suspect, well before the 46 count indictment and accusations of defrauding more than 200,000 people were handed down, after he amassed an estimated $52 million fortune.
Who will inherit all the trappings of success Lapre built on not so much a Webster's dictionary's worth of classifieds, but the recipes for how to use them to make millions is yet to be seen. I'm sure he had an insurance policy in place for his daughter and maybe even that little boy he referred to on his site as "My best buddy." The Hollywood movie is just around the corner. It will be interesting to see if that other institution that puts wealth (and with it power) on an idolic pedestal will do justice to his story. Or to the people he defrauded. Whatever the outcome and anticipated artistic reinterpretations, it strikes me odd that, in the end, Lapre, so to speak, lived out his point:
Why WOULD anybody ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?
(c) 2011 CREDIT THE EDIT, LLC http://www.credittheedit.com/
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